Concerning Tea
by luvsanime02
Summary: One-shot. Set five years after Unexpected Methods of Communication. Roy is trying to wrap his head around forever.


**Disclaimer: **I don't own Fullmetal Alchemist. That honor belongs to Arakawa Hiromu. I'm making no profit off of this fic.

**AN: **Rated T for references to sex, although none happens here. Set about five years after Unexpected Methods of Communication. Based on the manga. (Edited 12.2013)

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**Concerning Tea **by luvsanime02

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Edward Elric was both the easiest and the most difficult person that Roy had ever tried to understand. Interestingly, the level of difficulty was primarily determined by what exactly Roy wanted to know about him. For instance, if he wanted to know how Edward was feeling at any given time, Roy didn't even need to ask, and not because Edward was mostly angry. This was, in fact, not true. Most of the time, Edward Elric was simply too busy to feel anger.

No, what was really the difficult part in getting to know Edward as a person was figuring out what he was _thinking_. Ask Edward what he's feeling, if you can't already tell, and he'll write you an epic poem, complete with an impromptu stage performance. But to ask Edward was he was thinking at any given time was usually met with blank looks and then a carefully-constructed answer.

It was, to be honest, quite aggravating. Roy had never been under the impression that their relationship would just consist of sex. Roy liked Edward too much as a person, bratty though he could sometimes be, for sex to be the extent of their interactions, no matter how fantastic it usually was. Still, he'd also never expected for them to still find each other appealing five years later. This brought home to Roy that, and the little voice in his head that spoke was flabbergasted, he might already be in the relationship with the person he was going to spend the rest of his life with.

This revelation had come to him in the morning some weeks ago, breaking through his not-quite-awake haze and leaving him staring blankly at himself in the mirror until Edward had walked in and asked him why he was standing there with his toothbrush dangling from his mouth. Roy hadn't known how to vocalize his revelation, hadn't even known if he should - Edward hadn't done anything to him lately to deserve Roy breaking his brain too - and so Roy had simply spit and started shaving.

Now that Roy was consciously aware of this fact, he spent much of his time concentrating on Edward. Not that he had ignored the other man before, but Roy had never really questioned him either, never thought to ask after his opinion on the new hospital policy going into effect, or whether he preferred hot or cold tea. These questions hadn't seemed important to Roy a month ago. After all, if something annoyed Edward then Roy was usually the first one aware of it.

And it did frustrate Roy, because now that he was aware of all of these unanswered questions concerning Edward he found that he wanted to ask them even more. Edward was a brilliant young man, most definitely a true genius, and one of the only people on the planet who would scoff in the face of Roy's fury instead of flinch, and Roy had no idea how he preferred his tea. Sure, Edward drank whatever was placed in front of him, but Roy wanted to know which one he'd choose on his own.

Apparently, therein lay the whole problem. Roy knew what kind of person Edward was but that didn't mean he knew what Edward liked, and if Roy didn't know that then how was he meant to know what Edward didn't like?

So, Roy started asking. They'd been walking down the street when Roy had spotted a flash of garish red in a clothing store and his mouth seemed to open of its own accord. "Is red your favorite color, then?"

The blank look, and then, slowly, an answer. "Not really. It's fine, gets the blood going, but I prefer blue." Which was a color Roy had rarely ever seen on Edward, compared to the red he'd worn for years, and Roy spent the next few hours wondering why this was so.

"Which would you rather own, a dog or a cat?" he asked randomly, for no reason at all, a few days later at the breakfast table.

Edward's mouth twisted, and Roy, alarmed, wanted to take the question back but Edward was already answering. "Neither, really. I don't want to own a pet."

"Why not?" Roy asked after a few minutes' silent deliberation, but he was curious.

A flicker of a glance before Edward shrugged. "Dogs remind me of… _her_, and cats are more Al's thing." It was said quietly, but Roy still berated himself for a week for bringing up anything even remotely associated with Shou Tucker and his daughter.

More questions were asked, and one night Roy was getting undressed alone in their bedroom, Edward still clunking around in the bathroom. A sudden thought struck him, and Roy paused while pulling down his pants.

"So," he asked, loud enough for Edward to hear," how _do_ you like your tea?"

"I don't." Short and simple, and it caught Roy by such complete surprise that he stumbled with his pants around his ankles. Edward didn't like tea? He hadn't known that, and some unnamable yet persistent feeling rose within him.

"Since when haven't you liked tea?" he called back. Maybe it was a recent thing. People's tastes were always evolving, so Roy really shouldn't-

"I've never liked tea," Edward stated flatly. Absurdly, Roy felt like an integral keystone of his soul had just been removed.

"You do love the sex, right?" Roy asked a little desperately.

Well, that had certainly got Edward to stop whatever he'd been doing in the bathroom. Now the man was standing in the doorway to their bedroom looking decidedly confused. "Is this about you being weird and making noise during sex?" Edward asked at last.

Roy spared a brief second of hilarity and embarrassment at the idea that Edward thought _Roy _was the odd one when they had sex, but almost immediately he shook his head, not wanting to get into an argument about something that they'd both gotten used to years ago. "No, it's not that, I promise. It's just… You'd tell me, wouldn't you? If you didn't enjoy having sex with me, I mean."

Apparently, Roy's weird mood warranted skipping the bathroom altogether, as Edward came inside the bedroom and closed the door. He walked over to stand on the other side of the bed and crossed his arms, frowning lightly. "You're not getting bored with the way we have sex or anything, are you? Because if you honestly want to try something we haven't done yet, just ask."

A longer pause, but no, Roy refused to get sidetracked right now. "I've been asking, lately. Edward, in case you haven't noticed we've been living together for five years now, and I think we might be spending the rest of our lives together!" he finally burst out, unable to keep the swell of panic down a moment longer. Besides, he thought maybe being forced into having this conversation in the first place was rude enough to warrant startling Edward with this piece of information. Perhaps the other man would join him in his dementia.

"I knew that already," Edward spoke, at last a little annoyed, and thereby dashing Roy's brief hope of catching the other man off-guard.

"Well then, how is it that you don't see a problem with me not knowing if you enjoy us having sex together or not?" It occurred to Roy, at that moment in time, that he wasn't getting his point across clearly. After all, Edward was a literal creature, and for once, Roy's thoughts were not actually about sex. "Edward, haven't you wondered at all why I've been asking you so many unusual questions lately?" he asked instead.

Edward still didn't look like he had a clue what they were talking about. No, what Roy was talking about. "Until now, you mean?" the man asked sarcastically, but turned serious again in the next moment. "No, I thought you were asking me just because." A pause, and now Edward sat down on the bed, cross-legged, and used his pillow as an impromptu backrest. "Okay, apparently it wasn't that. So, why have you been asking me all of those questions lately?"

"Because I don't know the answers," Roy said honestly. "I've known you for almost half of your life, Edward, and I had no idea until a few minutes ago that you didn't like tea. Do you know how many times I've given you tea over the years?"

"Two thousand five hundred and seventy-three," came the prompt reply. Roy's whole brain blinked. For an entire minute he couldn't even produce any words inside of his head, let alone send any to his mouth.

"And did it ever occur to you once in those two thousand five hundred and seventy-three times to tell me that you didn't like tea?" Roy asked, a little quieted now. "Is it any wonder that I'm asking you these things now, that I actually feel bad for not asking them years ago?"

Now it was Edward's turn to blink finally. He opened his mouth, closed it, and then opened it again. "So, this is all about you being worried that maybe I don't want to be in a relationship with you, but that I'm still here because I don't realize that I can speak up about my feelings-"

"Thoughts," Roy interrupted quickly. "You're actually quite clear about your feelings." He swallowed. "And no, that's not quite-" He took a deep breath, and decided that Edward would probably appreciate him being blunt. "Do you want to spend the rest of your life with me? Because I want to, with you, and I've never wanted that before."

He shut up then, because Edward was pinching the bridge of his nose with one hand. Roy supposed he should appreciate the other man's restraint, as he had yet to visually roll his eyes. "Sometimes, you can be such an idiot," Edward replied.

Well, Roy had known he'd learned being brutally blunt from a master but that still rankled him a bit. Edward reached over with his left hand and laced their fingers together. Staring at their hands, he said, "I've known we were going to be together forever since about a month after we started dating."

Roy was understandably incredulous. "How?" he asked, genuinely curious. 'This is what you get,' his brain notified him almost gleefully, 'for falling in love with a genius.' And yes, Roy really should have figured that out by now.

Edward's fingers squeezed his. "Do you remember the first time you did this?" he asked, indicating their hands. Surprisingly, the recollection didn't take more than a second to recall.

The first time Roy took their hands and wound their fingers together Edward had stopped walking in the middle of the hallway to stare dumbly down at the entwined appendages, as though Roy had just solved the secret as to why ice cream tasted so good while milk itself was so vile. Roy would have been anxious, and he would have untangled their hands except that Edward hadn't looked mad, just utterly and deeply shocked to his core, as though the world itself had finally started to make sense. As though Roy had made Edward's world make sense, and Roy had remembered to breathe only when Edward started moving forward again.

Edward was currently looking at Roy like he was the world's biggest idiot, which he supposed was only fair considering he felt like it. He looked down at their entwined hands again. "Why didn't you say anything?" he asked.

The look he got was acerbic. "I thought you knew, actually. You know, since you've been in more relationships than me and all." Ouch, and yet, how could Roy have known?

He snorted. "What, you see someone else living here too?" he asked pointedly back. "Edward, I have no more experience with forever than you do. Less, actually, I'd imagine."

Edward shook his head but didn't reply, which Roy knew meant he was conceding the point. A rarity for the man, but Roy thought he'd earned the reprieve. Impulsively, he leaned over and kissed Edward, wrinkling his nose as he found out that the other man hadn't had an opportunity to brush his teeth before getting sidetracked by Roy's lunacy. Still, pulling back slowly, satisfied, Roy found he really only had one question left.

"So, why _didn't_ you ever just tell me that you hated tea?"


End file.
